Discussion on writing and publishing novels and short fiction

Social Media Just for Writers: A review

We're a little over twenty years into the web era, and about ten into the social-media age. Both have changed our lives, but most of us remain stubbornly set at about 1993: We really don't like to click on links unless we know what we'll find on the other side.

For many web users, this may be no great loss. Plenty of people are happy to surf to familiar sites and to get their email, and they're not interested in learning what else the web offers. I confess to a sneaking sympathy for such folks. They may be incurious, but they seem to understand that the more they learn, the more of their time it will consume. And they wisely stay put.

Those of us who write, however, really don't have that option. We can't just pound on an old typewriter until we've completed a manuscript, and then mail it off to an army of specialists who will edit it, design it as a book, print it, write ads about it, and then arrange for us to tour the country to sell it. (And I should also mention the clerks and accountants who will keep track of its sales and send us a semi-annual cheque.)

Instead, we have to do more and more of the publisher's job: produce the manuscript as an editable electronic file, and promote the book both online and face to face. We may very likely have to become publishers ourselves.

Whether we like this prospect or not, we're stuck with it. For regular print publishers to stay in business, they have to keep costs brutally low. So a good story, badly written, will be rejected because it's too expensive to pay an editor to clean it up. A reasonable midlist title, which might take two or three years to find its audience, won't get any time at all; warehouse space is expensive. And forget about the ego-inflating author's tour, complete with airfare, hotels, and solicitous PR experts ferrying us to our interviews.

Many writers are uncomfortable with the business aspects of publishing themselves (we're writers, after all, not publishers). But if we're willing to click through some links, we can at least become active and effective self-marketers.

And that's the thesis of a useful new book by Frances Caballo: Social Media Just for Writers. I'll say this much for it: It got me to click through some links I'd long avoided. For a guy who's not crazy in love with most social media, that's an achievement.

Blogging, yes. I've loved blogging for almost a decade...after consciously refusing to have much to do with it from the late 1990s until 2003. Once I clicked through to a few blogs, I saw what I was missing. With each new book project since then, creating a blog was practically step one: Writing for the Web, Writing Fiction, Pioneers, Sell Your Nonfiction Book. But I have to admit that most of my book blogs haven't drawn much traffic, or sales.

At the same time, I've hesitated to get into social media. My students dragged me kicking and screaming onto Facebook; since retiring from teaching, I rarely show up there. I joined LinkedIn but again did little with it. Only with Twitter have I really plunged in—and that's been more as a journalism tool than a book-marketing tool.

Frances Caballo has shown me the error of my ways. I learned more about LinkedIn in a few minutes with her book than I have from years of incurious membership. I caught up with what Facebook can do, and how to use Twitter for a lot more than just publicizing blog posts to my followers. (The sheer number of Twitter-related applications was a revelation.)

Some social media are still no-go zones for me: I just can't stir up any interest in Pinterest, Google+, or Picasso. But if I ever change my mind, I'll re-read Caballo's chapters on those media before I start clicking through.

I found Caballo's chapter on blogging to be pretty sound. She's absolutely right about keyword-rich blog post titles. Back in December 2004, I posted an item here titled How Many Pages Make a Novel? Google tells me it's still #1 out of 2.4 million hits for "how many pages in a novel," and I see that 5 out of 8 visitors currently on my site (4:00 pm January 14, 2013), arrived via that link.

Choosing an evocative title for your blog itself can also help: Google H5N1 and you'll find my public-health blog, launched in March 2005, at #2 out of 9.7 million hits. Google Social Media Just for Writers and you'll see Caballo's Facebook site is #1 out of 284 million hits.

If you've decided to go into serious self-publishing, whether in print or ebook, you'll really need Caballo's chapter on offline promotion, which covers everything from business cards to news releases. It's good, practical advice. She also argues persuasively for submitting your book to bloggers for review, and for "virtual book tours"—which is how this book, and Frances Caballo, have turned up here.

One final point: While the ostensible audience for this book is people writing books, it's at least as useful for writers who want to write directly for social media—the people who just want to run a solid, attractive blog, or advocate for some cause via Facebook and Twitter. Frances Caballo has a lot to teach those writers too.

Comments

Wow! I related to so much in your review that I don't even know where to start! I hadn't even thought of this book being good for folks writing exclusively for social media -- having a blog myself, I've told myself plenty of times that I need to have better keywords in my posts, but I rarely motivate myself to figure out how that all works. As someone who feels like they already "get" social media, I see I still have some things to learn! :)

Thanks so much for this review. I also went kicking and screaming into social media but once I immersed myself, I absolutely fell in love with it. I'm still careful about which emails I'll open and which friend requests I'll accept (I learned the hard way what can happen when I'm too lenient) but I'm still very open online. One client recently told me after a training session, "Wow! You make social media fun." That's what I try to do for people. You don't have to be a techie to master social media; you just need to experiment and keep learning about it. I wrote my book specifically for people who were uncertain about treading into this new media. I'm so glad people are liking it! If anyone has questions, please let me know. I'd love to answer them here on this blog.

Nice to have you here on your virtual tour, Frances. As long as you're here, a couple of questions:

1. I'm still worrying about the time-sink aspects of social media, especially given the known time-distortion field that computers generate: Sit down for five minutes, get up two hours later. How do you cope with maintaining your social-media presence while still meeting all the other demands on your day? Is it the efficiency of practice, or just rationing yourself, or something else?

2. These media are all virtually brand-new. But do you see anything on the social media horizon that might compete with, or even replace, media like Facebook and Twitter?

I apologize for my delay in responding! (I have the flu.) For me, social media isn't a "time suck." I structure my time so that in the mornings, I curate and post information. I also use an application called SocialOomph that enables me to space my tweets and LinkedIn updates throughout the day. Then in the late afternoon/early evening, I return to it and spend time being social. You can really excel at social media in just 20 to 30 minutes a day.

I don't see anything replacing Facebook or Twitter but Pinterest has become very popular and RebelMouse (not covered in the book) is gaining steam. We're moving more and more into micro blogging (few words) and great images.